H-1B Bait and Switch

By John Miano on April 19, 2016

The shilling for the H-1B program is always shameless, but here is an example with real chutzpah. Our intrepid author writes:

In December Congress included a provision in the omnibus spending bill that doubled the H-1B processing fee from $2,000 to $4,000 for certain immigrant-intensive companies. All these visa fees hit hardest businesses without the resources to pay these escalating costs — typically smaller, younger businesses struggling to break in against their larger rivals.

We are to believe that visa fees are killing poor startup companies. Hmmm.

I looked up the offending bill, Pub. L. No, 114-113, and found the offending provision in § 411:

(b) Temporary H-1b Visa Fee Increase — Notwithstanding section 281 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1351) or any other provision of law, during the period beginning on the date of the enactment of this section and ending on September 30, 2025, the combined filing fee and fraud prevention and detection fee required to be submitted with an application for admission as a nonimmigrant under section 101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b)), including an application for an extension of such status, shall be increased by $ 4,000 for applicants that employ 50 or more employees in the United States if more than 50 percent of the applicant's employees are such nonimmigrants or nonimmigrants described in section 101(a)(15)(L) of such Act.

So the fees in question only affect companies that have more than 50 employees and over half of the companies total employees are on H-1B or L visas. In other words, we’re talking about the companies whose business is importing H-1B workers; not poor startup companies.

Holy bait and switch, Batman!

* * *

This Friday is the last day for IT workers at Abbott Labs who are getting the H-1Boot.

Sara Blackwell is holding an event for the soon-to-be-former Abbott Labs workers on April 22 at 5:30 pm at Flanagans in North Chicago. I and my Sold Out co-author, Michelle Malkin, will be there along with many other individuals the hired H-1B shills would like to see go away. Come and join us if you are in the area.